The Birthday Tattoo

Last year for my birthday my Mom asked me what I wanted for my big 4-0 birthday gift and I said a tattoo! I have been thinking about getting a tattoo for over 10 years, so this was not some wild and crazy decision. Mom said ok – she was giving me money and I could buy whatever I wanted to (yes, I have a cool Mom and yes, she will love seeing that in print). Then Mom mentioned the tattoo gift to my Dad and he said no. Whatever. So the topic was not spoken of again to my Dad, but I was still getting  a tattoo. So Mom’s gift of money was to pay for the tattoo and Dad’s gift of money was for something else. Then in the spring I asked around and got a few tattoo parlor suggestions, but I was in too much foot pain to think about getting a tattoo, then Dad died in July, I had foot surgery in September, and I decided to waited for my foot to heal (or at least not be in any pain – I am still waiting for the no pain part). So over the past few weeks, and as the next birthday draws closer, I started to think about the tattoo again and I decided that I would use the birthday money from both Mom and Dad (yes, he would have totally hated that) to pay for the tattoo. Tonight I was talking to the student monitors and they mentioned how they liked Steady Tattoo & Piercing just down the road from the library. I emailed a few people as well and they gave Steady a good recommendation (decent price, clean, and they do a good job). So I walked over after work and discussed the tulip design I wanted with the staff. I proceeded to picked out some tulip images off the internet (tulips are my favorite flower) and I was going to make a reservation for later in the week, but then I asked if they had a spot open tonight and they did! So Jerome (the tattoo artist) came up with  a tulip design based on images that I had picked online and off I went to have a tattoo! I was originally thinking of a peach color tulip, but my skin is pretty pale, so I went with a red color for the tulip. Jerome applied the drawing to my right foot – it was like a stencil and started to tattoo in my tulip.

Pain. Yes, there was pain. Having had some laser face facials done, the pain was less than the laser. There was not a lot of blood, no crying, and actually I talked, took photos and tweeted through the whole thing, which lasted about 30 minutes. Thought out the whole process Jerome had me look to see if I wanted anything changed. There was one shadowed area on the tulip that was left bare to provide contrast and I made him color it in. As I told him, with my personality it would drive me crazy and it needed to be colored in. So he colored it in. Overall it was a good experience and next time (I plan on getting a little airplane when I get my pilots license) I will know what to expect.